Reassessment (Or: The Fine Art Of Beginning Again)
by nogreateragony78
Summary: The end of Spark of the Rebellion from Kanan and the rest of the original Ghost Crew's perspective. Some things are just what they seem. Some things are not. (AKA: Kanan Jarrus Kicks Rear At Real Life Sabaac)


A/N: Feel free to check out my tumbler blog 4persephone to leave comments and fic prompts, or to request or read more of my fic snippits, sw silliness and general fandom crackery...

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 _"A Master and an Apprentice. What a rare find these days."_

 _"I don't know where you get your delusions, Buckethead. I work alone."_

 _"Not today."_

 _-Ezra Bridger, Alexandr_ Kallus _and Kanan Jarrus, Star Wars Rebels S1, Spark of Rebellion_

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 _ **"Not today, (Kid.)"**_

 _ **'And this is how it *really* begins.'**_

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It's hard - incredibly hard, if Kanan's honest with himself - to watch Ezra depart from the Ghost with nothing more than a carefully fashioned half smirk and a cynical wave of one of his hands, as if he isn't aware that there's one last, desperate grasp at connection still in play via the lightsaber buried deep inside one of the Kid's jumpsuit's inner pockets.

It's both physically and emotionally unsettling to let him leave- even just temporarily - when the deepest, longest suppressed part of Kanan's psyche wants to go out there and herd him back into the fold of The Ghost's protection like some kind of deranged Jedi border collie.

It's somehow wrong not be yelling for him to get his butt home again.

'It's not for forever, Jarrus, it's just for the next couple of hours.' They're not actually going anywhere after all, no matter what the teen who just departed from the end of the boarding ramp thinks. None of what's happening is what Ezra Bridger clearly assumes. This is all, well... more of a prolonged pre-recruitment recognizance mission essentially. The next few hours should be, if nothing else, incredibly tactically illuminating. It'll give him - and Hera - more context for the teenager who's about to become another one of them.

And in the meantime, he needs to remind himself to keep some kriffing perspective. He needs to shield the both of them well and try not to get too impatient - because this whole gamble he's making is only going to work if he remembers it is in fact just a high stakes round of sabaac and if he retains perspective about what he's actually doing right now as well as *why* he's really doing it.

This whole dog and pony show? It's for the good of The *Kid*.

''He'll only join up with us willingly if it's a decision he can make for himself. If it's not, in short, presented as a choice between two horrible options: one - join a crew he already knows is capable of abandoning him because they did it on the very first rescue mission that you all ended up in or two - go it alone and spend the indefinite future both alone and aggressively hunted...'

Kanan's choice to pull his lightsaber how and when he had had forever changed all of their options. And now that they're reasonably safe - for awhile at least, they're going to have to figure out how to start anew again. They're going to have to take something that's basically rabble and turn it into something cohesive.

If nothing else, Kanan admits to himself as he and Hera watch the teenager flee from their presence, these next couple of hours should give them both some clue about the scope and depth of the repair work that's inevitably going to be required to help Ezra in the days and weeks ahead of them.

Because Ezra Bridger is damaged. Karabast and Bloody Sithspit is he damaged. The teenager is far more than his mouthy if affable guise had let Kanan imagine upon their first meeting. Right now he's literally studying the boy constantly on the sly and methodically rewriting his whole opinion of both what and who the fourteen year old is.

One thing he knows for sure: Ezra Bridger is a walking wound - a patchwork of barely and poorly healed over scars. They are ones he keeps ruthlessly hidden behind the guise he wears like the strongest of armor. Said guise is simple: reckless, arrogant, unethical street kid.

'If only it were really that simple.' In clearest example, Kanan'll have wonder later tonight - once Ezra's finally safely back 'home' aboard The Ghost again and climbing into a bunk in him and Zeb's room - whether the dark-haired teenager had made a deliberate decision to pick pocket his lightsaber when he left, or if it had been a more impulsive decision on his part. And if it had been deliberate, then what *exactly* had the theft been intended to accomplish?

Had it been, as most people might assume, just a simple but deliberate middle finger from Ezra to the group of people who were about to abandon him yet again- or had the decision been more of a desperate, subconscious last flail for emotional connection. A guarantee to ezra that he'd get at one more round to talk to Kanan, and this one more chance to ask some cruciallu life sustaining questions.

It's a fascinating puzzle, really... when Kanan lets himself stop and truly wonder. Had the kid taken the weapon to deliberately piss Kanan off – to make him (and probably the rest of the Ghost's crew) angry and unforgiving enough upon their next meeting that they'd drive him away permanently from their presence so he could stop caring - or had the teen's decision ultimately been about his need for further knowledge?

Specifically - who else but Kanan could have really answered Ezra's questions about who and what he is, and about the danger his sensetivity put him under as a citizen of the empire? Who else had more expertise on any of those issues in Ezra's eyes than Kanan?

'You've got him by the proverbial balls right now, and you better believe that he knows it.' It seems like it should be an overstatement from the outsider's perspective, but it really isn't, sadly enough. Kanan doesn't just have the Holocron Ezra wants, the family/crew Ezra needs, and the lightsaber that might actually have some chance of defending Ezra against his newest enemies, from the street rat's perspective - he also holds the answers to most if not all of Ezra's most important personal questions.

Questions like, 'Who are you really, and also what the kark am I?' Questions like 'Why did that idiot from Imperial Security assume that you and I were somehow connected and how much danger does that presumed connection create for me from here on out?' Questions like, 'if we really are the same somehow then why did your friend so easily abandon me, especially when I'd just risked my own neck to save all of your lives when you'd done nothing significant for me?" (The answer to that one, of course, is simple. Zeb was being a selfish dick. But then against he, unlike Kanan, is less familiar with the thieves code and how it shaped life on the street.) And then, of course, there is the worst question of all from Ezra's perspective: "I'm clearly in karking big trouble and desperate need of a rescue, but how can I possibly trust any of your people not to betray me in the heat of the fire yet again? ..."

How is Ezra supposed to survive in this new world he fell into, where suddenly the least of the things he needs to fight off alone is the threat of starvation? It's a simple question, and the answer is obvious, to Kanan at least. Bridger can't. Not alone anyway. Which wraps things back around to the force willed training bond that Kanan's finally noticed trying to inbed itself firmly into the minds of both of them.

The thing'll settle in as strong and as permanent as industrial duracrete if Kanan's simply willing to open up and let it.

The kid is...is his *padawan* in all but name essentially - or at least Ezra could become that with very little effort on either of their parts. He is, whether Ezra chooses to take the path of the Jedi or not, Kanan knows, now the Spectres' responsibility indefinitely. One that he'd become, not simply because Kanan had pulled his lightsaber when he had, but because even before that moment of decision for Kanan, Ezra had made their mission his own in a conscious decision to tell them what he knew about the Wookies. Now afterwards they just have to help him actually process the long term consequences of that particular decision.

They have to teach him what being crew on the Ghost actually means.

It isn't going to be an easy job though, because if Kanan doesn't miss his guess, then Ezra Bridger's near complete and utter isolation has been the kid's most consistent truth in regards to his own life. He didn't yet grasp the meaning - or the look of what it really means for someone to *stay.*

Instead Ezra has just assumed like always, that all of this was inevitably ending with another goodbye. Which is why, Kanan has to assume, the boy doesn't crack facade for more than a microsecond or two when he debarks from the ship. The teenager doesn't falter or look back over his shoulder as he goes . Instead, he simply steps out and into the wide expanse of grass in front of him - and off he runs. His own servant and master both, as it has always been.

Only at it turns out now there's competition for that second position.

Kanan can't help but wonder what Ezra is really thinking about as he leaves the Ghost and her crew behind, making his way back out into the skeletal remains of his old life: is the teenager regretting any ofthe choices he's made over the past few days - and the way he's made himself so much more vulnerable to harm as the result of a simple snatch and grab? Or is he at peace - happy for the impact he's had on the world for it's better, even if the consequences still to come end of meaning the death of him?

Why is it, Kanan wonders, that Ezra never even once looks back over his shoulder in their direction once he goes?

Force, does the Kid really not grasp that the world in he wishes he lived - rather than the one he's always inhabited - is neither unreasonable or even insubstantial. Has he never been taught that he is in fact entitled to make good choices and profit ? Is everything temporary and ephemeral to him in the end?

It's possible, Kanan makes himself acknowledge with a grimace. Hell, it's probably even likely. After all, Ezra is so painfully familiar with being left to his own devices at this point in his life that it's become the nature of reality as he perceives and interacts with it. Ezra is used to other people leaving him behind. So much so that he seems to fail to grasp that the crew of the Ghost aren't the ones who gave up on connection this time around - *Ezra never once asked if he could stay. He'd had no faith to do so. He'd seen no reason.

He doesn't grasp that they aren't the ones in motion at this point in the story, that for quite awhile now he's the one who's been leaving.

All this in mind, Kanan works his jaw a moment and forces himself to remain still - to simply watch as the dark-haired teenager turns toward the southeastern edge of the field and plummets down out of their sightline just past the crest of the hill, disappearing into the swaying grass byond without so much as final wave or glance of goodbye.

The moment he's out of sight, Kanan quietly, deliberately throws the shielding he's built around his end of their bond fully open. There. Now he'll know, just as soon as Ezra does, if any real trouble starts spawning. For now though, he's just going to let Ezra unwind and hopefully process the past few days a little now that he's back on Lothol again.

The teen's more than earned the right to a little personal space.

'Personal space and home court advantage.' That tower out there is Ezra's home: Kanan knows that as instinctively as he knows how to walk. Ezra Bridger,hadn't asked them to drop him back in the middle of Central City like he should have when they arrived back on planet, much to Kanan's initial surprise. Instead, he'd elected to have them drop him on the outskirts, where the dilapidated Communication Tower out there in the distance is really the only thing worth catching anyone's attention.

"So why exactly are we all standing here, pretending we're going to ditch him again?" Just behind him on the Ghost's disembarkation ramp, Sabine's leaning against one of the support struts, her voice straddling the fine edge between actual anger and righteous confusion. "I mean unless we've got some kind of bigger strategy that nobody's bothered to tell me about." She points an accusing finger at Kanan. "You pulled a 22 Pickup on us in the middle of a high surveillance location, Kanan."

"I know."

"And then there was Ezra's whole…" She mimes the force assisted flip Ezra had used, "On the bridge."

I Know."

"You told Here that the agent from during the result obviously thought that Ezra was your student..."

"My Padawan." He corrects the terminology again.

"Then will someone here *please* clue me in on what it is that we're *actually doing?!*"

Zeb mouth is tight. "Sabine is right, Kanan. Kid's a security risk at best if we leave him out her on his own now. They're gonna be looking for all of us, after what happens and if he gets reckless again or even just gets unlucky and randomly scooped up…" The Lasat's mouth twists up in a grimace, "...they aren't going to be gentle with him next time, Kanan. Not like before. Most likely they'll try and make him into a nasty public obedience lesson..."

The Lasat's face is a mass of conflicting emotions as he speaks: guilt, fear, anger, and worry all warring on his face along with no small amount of frustration. Kanan gets a distinct feeling that the Lasat's fighting back his own frustrated protective instincts right now - his muscles are tense, like he's seriously considering pursuing Ezra out to the tower to either apologize for earlier or just manhandle him back to the ship again...

It's an interesting change, rally. Deeply, deeply ironic, but also definitely interesting.

Hera, meanwhile, just tilts her head to study him for a couple of long considering moments, before she speaks, "So how long are you going to give him out there, exactly, before one of us follows him out and talks him back in again? Because I have to be honest with you, Kanan- up until about ten minutes ago, I thought that you were staying quiet because we were waiting for him to ask if he could stay like any reasonably sane person would have done in this kind of situation. "

"Hera? There was no way in hell he was ever gonna ask to stay. Even after everything that happened, he's far too much of hard learned cynic to risk doing that. " Kanan spreads his hands - one of them gesturing to Ezra's ever shrinking form in the distance. "Hell, I fully expect he's gonna waffle at first when I make the offer for him to join us even though he *wants* to come aboard. The kid's head is like day six of a seven-day hurricane at present..." He shrugs his shoulders "He desperately needs a little time on the high ground and not in the metaphorical basement."

Kanan isn't stupid. Nor is he naive. He understands very well the delicate line they have to walk in the hours ahead of them, if things are going to fall into place in the way that he's hoping. Ezra, independent to a fault, isn't going to accept he or Hera's authority over him unless he *chooses* to give them that power in exchange for something he's determined he wants even more. If he made to feel trapped, helpless or manipulated into a decision before they even start working on creating true group cohesion than everything that came afterward will be inevitably, hopelessly poisoned.

"Yeah, I sort of figured out that that was why you didn't ask him before he left the ship. Still, I thought you were getting the lay of the land and figuring out what to do next after what happened with Zeb…" Hera lets the sentence die off and the Lasat behind her twitches uneasily. "It's only to be expected that he may have issues - at least initially - with trusting. That we'll have to ease him into thinking of this as the right path for all of us where we're relatively safe and everybody wins."

"Now though," She gestures to growing distance between them and the boy, her right Lek twitching in agitated unhappiness. "That tower is at least two miles out, Kanan and it has to have a billion bolt holes. If he goes deep enough to ground once he gets there...if there's a tunnel system we can't see." The sentence trails off, but her eyes darken with meaning. If Ezra pops smoke on them right now than they could have real hard time tracking him down as quickly again.

The real message behind Hera's words of course, is clear as day to him after so many years of partnership: 'That kid is mine now, Kanan Jarrus. And he's being allowed to escape.' Apparently, as far as Hera Syndulla is concerned, Ezra Bridger became her responsibility the moment his mostly self-rescued ass landed itself on the ramp of her ship.

He feels his lips twitch up a little at the revelation ... 'Well that'll make a few future conversations a little more interesting. He still calls dibs on the whole primary parent status of course but if necessary they can always... arm wrestle over the issue or something.

'Still…' In the meantime that poor, poor stupid kid. He has no clue what's about to metaphorically hit him. Ezra, really, really shouldn't have admitted to Hera Syndulla that he's an orphan – not when she'd already started growing alarmingly fond of him. At this point, the Ghost's Captain will probably agree to cede back her hijacked custodial priviledges when the kid hits seventy or eighty.

Because serious if he's honest, the last time Hera'd had that particular look going they'd been just days away from recruiting Sabine.

Looking down at her now, he quirks his lips and jerks his head toward the com sat attached to the outside of the Ghost's hull, "Don't worry about it guys- I've already got Chopper scanning for incoming traffic in case we get company. He'll let us know if anything comes anywhere close." His eyes lock out on the middle distance for a moment or two, mind stretching out in instinctive check in - "Right now Ezra's tired - and hungry, he didn't eat enough of his breakfast as he definitely should have because he was avoiding us, but mostly he's just overwhelmed and needs a little time and space to sort out his head. I figured that we'd give him a couple of hours to settle down and really review his current circumstance before I go out there and have a man to man with him.

Sabine nods at that and Hera visibly relaxes. Even Zeb looks something suspiciously closed to pleased. Which is when Kanan smirks again, and deliberately drops his next bit of information with a too innocent spread of his hands tanned hands. "After all, how else am I gonna get back the lightsaber that I just let him take off me.?"

Kanan pauses for a moment and watches that information sink in. Chopper whirs, then beeps in understanding and derision. Zeb and Sabine both stare at him for a moment...utterly flummoxed by what they've heard apparently. Hera, goes very, very still. Then she throws back her head and starts laughing uproariously.

"You," She finally manages, pointing a scolding finger even as she laughs. "Are wily as hell, Kanan. Well played, Spectre One, as always." Than she smacks him hard with her other hand, "Seriously Kanan, you couldn't have said something to at least warn me privately?"

"Now where's the fun in that?" Kanan grins as Hera smacks him again. It's nice to know, he admits, that even after all this time, when it comes to this kind of situation, he hasn't lost his particular touch with complex game theory and bluffing. He glances first at Sabine and then at Zeb, then back at Hera on last time, taking in all three of his friends' capacities' to continue on with the rest of what needs saying. It only take half a minute or so to reach that junction in their discussion. "Hey - one thing you should know, before I coax the kid back on board: you all better buckle the kriff up. The next few months will probably make the last week or so seem like a walk in the park in comparison - especially until we all manage to gain his trust back again."

Zeb lets out a low disbelieving grunt at that pronouncement and Kanan narrows his eyes at the response. "I'm serious, Big Guy. Ezra's scared to death right now. Not that I really blame him for it, seeing as he just got dumped from his familar little fish pond into a shark infested ocean. Initially, at least, he's likely to just seek cover and hide until he can find his bearings. And when he's out and about he's going to be testing the safety of the waters constantly. Don't take it as a personal attack. Try and have his back whenever you can outside of a little horseplay or teasing. Once he's sure he's reasonably safe, well that's when we'll probably start getting brief glimpses of how living with him on the regular is actually going to be."

"'Have his back' huh? Is that why you let him take the lightsaber with him when he left? Even though he's not trained to use it at present?" Hera's voice is only a little bit curious - she's asking for everyone else's sake probably more than she is for her own.

Kanan merely nods. "Who am I to deny The Kid a little high ground, after how the past few days have dropped the earth out from under his feet over and over? We've had all the power ever since this start, while he's been the one who actually needs it. If this goes how I hope, when he gives the thing back it'll be because he knows I can be trusted to use it to guard him too just like I would you or me."

For once in his life, Kanan thinks with no small amount of personal satisfaction, Ezra Bridger is about to be offered what he needs even if he doesn't expect it. Because as far as Kanan is concerned after the week Ezra's had that's the very least the universe owes the shellshocked teenager at the moment.

Sith hells. Kanan checks the status of the bond, just to be sure, but no...that's just him. That's him ruffled and nervous and yet somehow at the same time something very close to giddy. Because he's about to willing take on a Padawan. Which is completely karking crazy.

Kan Jarrus is willingly saddling his path to that of a small teenage boy's who is as reckless as he curious, and whom, if Kanan doesn't miss his guess, will regularly drive him just short of crazy with his sheer amount of repressed energy.

And it's hands down, no holds barred the best decision Kanan thinks he's ever made in his life.

Somewhere out there in the Force," He thinks, with a wry smile "Depa Billaba, Master of the once Caleb Dume, had better be watching this karmic backlash return to him in full. And when she sees it, she better damn well be laughing.


End file.
